Neolithic Era

3000 - 1500 B.C.

The earliest known Chinese Stone Age culture was the relatively sophisticated Yang-shao, whose people lived in rudimentary settlements and hunted for game with carved stone spears. The succeeding and more advanced Lung-shan culture identified the social status of the deceased by the type and number of precious jade objects and ceramics in their burial mounds. Chinese Neolithic pottery, both delicate and durable, was artfully decorated and served both practical and ritual purposes.

Curator of Asian art Robert Jacobsen takes us through China's illustrious past by focusing on each of its historical dynasties.